Many industries utilize shelving for display, organization, and storage of goods, materials and tools. In retail stores, shelving is often used to display goods for sale. In many retail stores, shelving resets are common. For example, shelves may be repositioned on the sales floor to accommodate new merchandising. During these resets, the number of shelves in use may vary. Often retailers need to hide away extra retail shelves that may not be used during certain merchandising. In addition, shelves may become unusable over time due to normal wear and tear or other causes. Accordingly, retail stores may maintain a supply of shelves in storage in a back room or closet.
Moveable carts for storing unconnected shelves facilitate efficiency through mass movement of the shelves during the rearrangement and repositioning of the shelves for merchandising resets. In addition, they may make accommodation of the stored shelving easier within the back room or closet. However, the space within the back room is limited in many retail establishments, and moveable carts often occupy the same amount of space regardless of whether they are empty or holding shelves in storage.
Designs for some display units which might be used for storing shelves include side walls that fold to a position adjacent to the back wall to conserve space when stored. Such displays are not well designed for storing and moving retail shelves and do not include elements sufficient to support an unconnected shelf. Some designs for compactable carts have been developed in which a floor and side walls can be folded to a position adjacent to a back wall to conserve space when stored. Such carts are often bulky because they include a complete floor and have a wide profile to accommodate the folded floor section.